6 Backup as a Service and Disaster Recovery Trends to Watch in 2022

January 19th, 2022


Everyone who’s done work on a computer has made this mistake at least once: you spend hours working on a project, and then your computer’s hardware fails or a file becomes corrupted. Your work disappears in a split second. The pain is almost tangible.  

Now, imagine every business’ worst-case scenario when it comes to cybersecurity. You’re hit by a ransomware attack and your data is completely inaccessible. You could lose millions of dollars due to downtime, litigation, and lost goodwill. 

With cloud computing, backup as a service (BaaS) and disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) can keep your work continuously safe from a myriad of problems, from computer crashes to ransomware attacks. The process should happen continuously in the background. However, as businesses digitize more processes and as IT environments expand, executing a robust backup and recovery plan can become anything but simple.  

Fortunately, Backup as a Service (BaaS) and Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) providers are stepping up to meet the challenges of prioritizing simplicity in a world that is becoming increasingly complex every year. If you’re responsible for backup and disaster recovery for your business or for managed service clients, here are six trends that can help you do your job more easily and effectively in 2022. 

1. Data Sovereignty Clouds and Regulatory Compliance

As data becomes the most highly valued asset for many businesses, governments the world over are responding with increasingly stringent privacy laws, such as Europe’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). Danny Allan, CTO at Veeam, predicts that in 2022, “We’ll see much more focus on data sovereignty clouds to keep data within nations or within a certain physical location. Some will see this as an obstacle, but once implemented, this will be a good thing as it puts consumer privacy at the core of business strategy.” 

Stay ahead of the curve and pay attention to how and where your data is stored, or better yet, partner with a cloud service provider who is in the vanguard of data sovereignty trends. 

The cutting-edge disaster recovery plans for 2022 will be built around data privacy and security. A data breach can have disastrous repercussions, which is why it’s critical to get ahead of such an event and prevent it from happening. 

RELATED: Data Privacy vs. Data Security: Do You Know the Difference? 

2. Enhanced Protection Against Ransomware Attacks 

Speaking of data breaches, ransomware attacks skyrocketed up 93% in 2021 and have shown no signs of slowing down. Going forward, cloud infrastructure must be built with cybersecurity as the priority. For 2022, BaaS and DRaaS solutions will focus on data immutability, a key protection against ransomware is to prevent cybercriminals from locking, encrypting, or deleting data. 

The average total cost of a ransomware attack is a jaw-dropping $1.8 million, but with Veeam the average cost is reduced to less than $5k. This is why Virtual Systems partners with Veeam, offering increasingly sophisticated methods of prevention, early detection, and data recovery in the event of a ransomware attack. Resiliency and availability are key benefits of data backup as a service for the leading-edge business owner. 

RELATED: Your Essential Disaster Recovery Plan Checklist 

3. Continuous Data Protection 

Smaller windows of RPO/RTO are becoming more important than ever. Continuous data protection (CDP), sometimes also called continuous backup, backs up a system whenever you make a change instead of at scheduled time intervals like snapshot-based solutions. An obvious advantage is that CDP has a recovery point objective of 0. That means that if disaster strikes, you have all your data up until that point – you don’t have to go back and fill in missing data since the last backup.  

It’s crucial, however, that you test recovery scenarios with your team or with your Disaster Recovery as a Service Partner. Watching your software produce green checkmarks that make you feel warm inside only gets you part of the way toward a robust and well-executed plan. The technology is getting better, but practicing your events is the best step toward preparedness. Veeam will take its biggest strides in this category in 2022 with the release of v11. 

RELATED: New Solutions Blur the Line Between Backup and Disaster Recovery 

4. Tiered Storage 

Another Backup as a Service trend is tiered storage. You may be thinking that’s nothing new, but cloud solutions now move data automatically between tiers, eliminating manual work. For example, Veeam has expanded its Scale Out Backup Repository with its Performance and Capacity Tier and Move Policy with immutability, resilience, and recoverability options. Most recently, Veeam also added an Archive Tier to offload backups into long-term storage as well as Google Storage as an Object Storage Repository for the Capacity Tier. 

The most significant benefit of tiered storage is cost savings because it gives you more control over the size of the data backups that you need to keep long term while still making data accessible when it’s needed. 

5. Instant Database Recovery 

Having a copy of your database has always been relatively easy to execute but ensuring that database can still be immediately accessible and useable is the new “must have” feature of great Backup and Recovery software. Watch for leading Disaster Recovery as a Service solutions to continue innovations around instant database recovery in the same way that instant VM recovery has been evolving. Specifically for the big DB players like Oracle and SQL, the play that Veeam and others are making is based on making a point-in-time state of a database instantly usable in another location or with your Cloud Service Provider. 

6. Hybrid Cloud + Multicloud = Hybrid Multicloud 

If the past few years have shown us anything, it’s that disaster is going to strike, but we are terrible at predicting what that disaster will be. Extreme weather events, aging infrastructure weaknesses, pandemics, supply chain issues – where will the next challenge originate? 

Even digital titans are not immune. In October, Facebook and its platforms experienced a global outage that disrupted services for all users, including internal communications. In December, Amazon Web Services (AWS), the leading provider of cloud infrastructure technology, experienced an outage that took out everything from Roombas to major global businesses that rely on the AWS foundation. 

When you’re building your backup and disaster recovery strategy, it’s best to assume you can’t predict what you will be up against. The future-proof way to protect against the unknown is to diversify: 

Hybrid Cloud Approach 

Businesses are seeing an advantage in bringing back some on-prem storage for their mission-critical data, while maintaining cloud-based systems for bulk storage and archived data. This hybrid cloud solution addresses data sovereignty issues and provides moderate protection against downtime from power outages and connectivity disruptions.  

Multicloud Approach 

As cloud computing becomes mainstream, businesses may see vulnerability in the single cloud approach. If you’re trying not to put all your eggs in one basket, a multicloud model will give you the flexibility of choosing the best vendor for each application. AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) infrastructures can allow redundancy if a major player suffers an outage. 

Hybrid Multicloud Approach 

This is exactly what it sounds like, a combination of the hybrid cloud and multicloud. Depending on your business needs, you may find this approach to be overly complicated – or it may be the perfect combination to suit your business continuity plan. It’s important to work with your cloud services provider to find the best cost vs. benefits solution for your needs! 

Explore Virtual Systems’ BaaS and DRaaS Solutions Today 

It can be tough to keep pace with the latest obstacles of the digital world, but with Virtual Systems as your cloud partner for backup and disaster recovery, you can confidently rise to the challenge. A robust business continuity plan can save you millions of dollars by preventing downtime and fending off malicious ransomware attacks. Experience the benefits of backup as a service for your critical business data! 

The experts at Virtual Systems will work with you to find the best recovery solution for your unique business. Don’t let another day pass without assessing your risk and vulnerability, contact our team for more information about our BaaS and DRaaS solutions today, or click here to start a free 30 day trial of Veeam cloud backup! 

 

References 

Ransomware Protection. Veeam. (2021). Retrieved from https://www.veeam.com/ransomware-protection.html 

The content provided here is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice on any subject. 

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